Christmas is coming! The mountain air feels especially crisp here in North Carolina and as the holidays approach our thoughts naturally turn towards home and family.

 

Camp is often referred to as a second home and we hope that it can truly be that for each of our campers this summer. Living together in a close knit community, cabin mates feel more like siblings and whether your child will be coming for their first summer or tenth summer, we believe camp will be a haven that they can’t wait to come home to, filled with friends that will endure for a lifetime. 

 

Being home for the holidays is often wonderful, but we know it also can be challenging or even painful. This Christmas season may be nothing but joyful for you, but if it is proving to be checkered with hard conversations, tense family moments, or just plain loneliness, we at camp want all of you to be reminded that you are all a part of a larger family and that we are thinking of you this year. In moments when things just aren’t as they should be, I am comforted by the Bible’s reminder that “..this world is not our permanent home: we are looking forward to a home yet to come” (Hebrews 13:14-15). 

 

The good news of Christmas, however, is more than just a reminder that we have a heavenly home to look forward to. It is that God came to this messy, awkward, fraught and sinful world. He can be with us. John 1:14 says “So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness..”. 

 

The best moments and places of this life are glimpses, traces, whispers of our future home. We get to experience that each summer together at camp and I hope that each of you also gets to experience that this Christmas season.

 

But even if this Christmas you are caught more in the ugly and hard than the merry and bright, I pray that you would be encouraged by the news that God has already come to be with us, that he is working to make the ugly things about this world beautiful again, and most importantly, He is coming back!


Merry Christmas,

 

John

Director, Camp Timberlake